Sundance

Exciting filmmaker Silas Howard returns to the Sundance Film Festival—after years of directing boundary-pushing TV series like Transparent and This Is Us—with a sharply observed feature expanding the vital conversation around gender identity today. Pitch-perfect performances from Danes and Parsons balance the relentless competitive drive of New Yorkers with the brutal honesty needed to keep a family together. Stellar supporting actors Amy Landecker, Ann Dowd, Priyanka Chopra, and Octavia Spencer bring humor and energy to the film, along with unexpected revelations about the characters and the world they inhabit.

With access to a trove of personal archival footage and including new, intimate vérité footage, director Cameron Yates creates a collage of Flynn’s singular focus and distinctive path through childhood. Chef Flynn shares a rare view of a young man’s successful rise from the inside.

Maya kept the camera rolling through her battles with the music industry and mainstream media as her success and fame grew around the world. Filmmaker and longtime friend Stephen Loveridge situates us inside the personal process of one of the most provocative and divisive artists working in music today.

With his singular cinematic brilliance, Jarecki paints a penetrating portrait of a nation in crisis and a metaphoric connection between Elvis and America. For just as a country boy lost his authenticity and became a king, so too his country lost her democracy and became an empire. One died on the toilet; the other now faces an uncertain future under the closest thing she’s ever had to a monarch.

Director Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts) returns to the Sundance Film Festival with this powerful, observational take on opioid addiction and the drug trade. Characters are presented without judgment in a riveting, interwoven narrative with superlative access to moments of heartbreak and personal truths. When one mother sobs, “I’m so tired of this; I don’t understand why,” she could be speaking for any person along this pervasive chain.

Actor Paul Dano makes an impressive debut as a filmmaker and—along with co-writer Zoe Kazan—elegantly adapts Richard Ford’s novel of the same name. Carey Mulligan delivers one of her finest performances as a complex woman whose self-determination and self-involvement disrupt the values and expectations of the 1960s nuclear family. With precise details and textures of its specific time and place, Wildlife commits to the viewpoint of a teenage boy observing the gradual dissolution of his parents’ marriage.

Based on the true story of a controversial and courageous man of God, Come Sunday elegantly and respectfully captures the authentic texture and tone of Pearson’s devout world, never resorting to hyperbole. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s tour-de-force performance embodies the effusive charisma and grounded humility of a character with everything to lose, yet even more to gain by heeding his convictions.

Gyllenhaal propels every moment of this mysterious film with a beguiling performance that proves once again she’s one of the most interesting actors working today. Based on an acclaimed Israeli film, The Kindergarten Teacher is the superb sophomore feature from writer/director Sara Colangelo (Little Accidents, 2014 Sundance Film Festival).

Slamdance

Human Affairs is a visceral drama about the human condition that captivates from the first frame to the final credit, With a dazzling ensemble cast, this nuanced and hard-hitting, emotional story leaves a lasting impression long after you've departed the theater. An accomplished and satisfying debut in its raw authenticity.

This isn't another teen movie! Well...ok there are teenage cast members and it takes place in a high school. BUT, this film is so much more than that. The Rainbow Experiment is an epic tale of guilt and blame where adults refuse to take responsibility for their actions and too easily pass on their issues to the kids around or whomever is the weakest target. Director Christina Kallas takes a known story trope, blows it up, reverses it, adds her own spices to it and creates a brilliant and ambitious human story of loss and "life happens" where we can all recognize a bit of ourselves.